OLPC + Fedora = ?

[Dan Williams]

On Tue, 2006-02-07 at 23:42 -0800, Jesse Keating wrote:
> On Wed, 2006-02-08 at 08:34 +0100, Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
> > So work through Fedora Extras. Please do not segregate OLPC packages
> > where other projects can not benefit. 
> 
> Some of the content that goes into OLPC may not be appropriate for
> Extras.  Things are still being worked out, please have patience.

That said, these are likely to be secondary tools and administrative
apps (like tools for generating the images that you flash the machines
with).  Most of the work will either be done upstream or in Core itself,
since it's usually just config changes (i.e. kernel), or splitting up
packages to reduce dependencies.  It's slightly unclear how this will
work exactly, but it usually won't result in _code_ changes.  Just
packaging ones.

Any real code changes are going to be done upstream if possible; the
kernel needs some work for the Geode companion chip, X.org needs heavy
fixing of the 'nsc' driver, etc.  But none of this has to live _only_ in
Core or Extras.  That's stupid.  OLPC stuff is going to happen upstream
as much as possible.  That also lets _anyone_, not just Red Hat people,
contribute as much as they can.  And that's fundamental to the project
in the long run.

Lots of this work is generic anyway and simply consists of breaking
stupid dependencies and slimming packages down.  Not too many people are
going to be able to physically have the OLPC hardware, since it's going
to governments and schools (and isn't on sale to the public).  But since
so much of the work is widely applicable, that's not much of an issue.

Dan